I had a noon meeting in the office today with two people from the company which does all the technical support for Cardiff RadioNet. We had Monday and Tuesday of this week set aside for a major exercise in upgrading 240 networked radios, and this was postponed for another two weeks at the eleventh hours. Today was our opportunity to review all our work plans for the coming months with top tech guy responsible for these things and consider the proposed scheduling of work needing to be done. Inevitably plans now have to be re-jigged to fit resources available, and that means more work for me next week, but at least this meeting afforded us the possibility of progress in getting our comms network to function in a way that matches our ambitions.
Would I have survived if the nature of 'getting things done' in the church had been as tricky and complex and strictly time based ? (Essential in any upgrade exercise of this kind.) The timescale of change in the church is generally pretty long and very elastic. As an impatient feller this frustrated me hugely, even though I learned to take 'the long view' over time. Now I have to think hard about the most efficient way to manage scarce time resources to get this job done. It's quite a contrast to the way I spent my working life, but I'm glad of all the insights this gives me into the ways of the workaday world.
This evening, Clare and I went to a circle dance session in the Mackintosh Institute over in Roath, with its immaculate, well-used bowling green right outside the french windows of its main assembly room. There were only seven of us (adults of riper years) at this first session of the new term, all people we knew from times past when our friend Moonyeen (God rest her soul) was this group's guru. It was an enjoyable if challenging experience to discover if I could still follow instructions, repeat steps consistently and not make a fool of myself - not that it matters - if you do go wrong nobody's bothered. Circle dance embraces every level and kind of participant that can stand and move around. I love its combination of physical and spiritual activity. Would that our over-intellectualised church life enjoyed the same balance and integration.
On the way home we called into big Tesco on Western Avenue to get some 9 volt smoke alarm batteries, as one of our three started irritating the hell out of us this morning. Such a simple purchase at ten at night in a 24/7 supermarket entailed queuing for a quarter of an hour at a checkout behind a couple of people with their week's shopping. The '10 items or less' aisle was closed. Only a fifth of the checkouts were open. There were queues requiring a couple of staff members to manage those using automatic checkouts. I refuse to use them on principle. OK it may be simple and efficient, but it's so impersonal. It reduces the social experience of shopping to queuing with others who don't want to speak, already fed up that they have to wait to part with their cash to a damned robot. I'd rather say 'hello' and 'thank you' to a real person, even if I have to queue for the privilege.
Next time, I'll exercise even more patience and get my spare batteries downtown, in Cardiff Market.
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